Main menu

Monthly Archives: July 2013

Post navigation

This morning was a bit of a rough morning; I weighed myself and saw a number higher than I’ve ever seen before. Understand this, I know weight gain is necessary. I also knew this would be one of the hardest parts of pregnancy for me.

I think I officially have to put the scale up. I know what I need to gain, but I also know that If I continue to weigh myself, I will have more mornings like this, and that is going to make for a long 24 weeks.

I don’t know what is going on, but I’ve just been super uncomfortable the last 2 days. Monday I woke up and I swear my stomach tripled in size. I felt horribly uncomfortable in my scrubs all day on Monday. On Tuesday I wore jeans & a maternity tank and that wasn’t much better. The band on the jeans kept rolling down because of my tummy, and it was just uncomfortable.

This uncomfortableness brought me back to a place I haven’t been in a while. A place where all of my thoughts are just consumed by my body, and how uncomfortable I am.

Of course I’ve been uncomfortable over the last 17 weeks, but I’ve done fairly well with tolerating it. I know my growing middle section is par for the course, and I’ve tried hard to embrace that. The last 2 days have just been different – My stomach has just felt different.

So this got me thinking: How am I going to make sure that my own body image issues don’t rub off on my daughter? How can I ensure that she doesn’t feel what I feel. How will I raise her in a way where she feels good about herself?

Please note: I’m not saying ANYTHING about the way I was raised. My Mom is an amazing Mom, and did nothing to contribute to my lack of body love.. It’s just a thing. Girls have it, boys have it. It just happens.

I started doing some research on how to raise a confident little girl {child}. I came across a few tips that I thought were really great:

Be a positive role model. Don’t talk negatively about your own body. Try not to be overly focused on your appearance.

Listen to your daughter and encourage her to speak her mind.

Don’t praise girls solely for their appearance. Praise should be focused on effort and accomplishments.

Watch how you talk about other people: Are you judgmental of people’s appearances? Make sure you’re sending a message to your children that it’s what’s inside—especially how we treat others—that defines a person and makes us who we are.

“It is within the family that a girl first develops a sense of who she is and who she wants to become. Parents armed with knowledge can create a psychological climate that will enable each girl to achieve her full potential. Parents can help their daughters avoid developing, or overcome, negative feelings about themselves and grow into strong, self-confident women.”

“Every child needs the kind of support from loved ones that signals, “I believe in you. I see your effort. Keep going!” Encouragement means acknowledging progress – not just rewarding achievement. So if your child is struggling with a math problem, say: “You’re trying very hard and you almost have it!” instead of “Not like that. Let me do it.”

There’s a difference between praise and encouragement. One rewards the task while the other rewards the person (“You did it!” rather than “I’m proud of you!”).

Praise can make a child feel that she’s only “good” if she does something perfectly. Encouragement, on the other hand, acknowledges the effort. “Tell me about the game. I saw you really hustling out there” is more helpful than saying, “You’re the best player on the team.”

Too much praise can sap self-esteem because it can create pressure to perform and set up a continual need for approval from others. Give your child the message that the effort – and seeing something through to the end – is what’s important.

So dole out the praise judiciously and offer encouragement liberally. That will help your child grow up to feel good about herself.”

Dove {the soap} has a Girls Unstoppable program; while I was browsing their website I found some frightening statistics.

63% of girls would rather be a men’smagazine model than a doctor, teacheror nurse(TheLab, 1000 girls aged 15-19)

Over 60% of girls avoid certain activities because they feel bad about their looks.For example:• 19% won’t try out for a team or club• 23% won’t go to the beach or pool• 13% won’t give an opinion• 15% won’t go to school(‘The Real Truth About Beauty –Revisited’, Dove Global study, 2010)

I know that all I can do is the best I can do; but I can try and be prepared and educated to help my daughter navigate through the tricky maze of self-confidence & self-esteem.

In a large mixing bowl, toss together all ingredients except cooking spray, mixing well until combined.

Prepare 2 foil pouches. Spray each piece of foil with cooking spray. Divide mixture evenly among both pieces of foil and seal.

Place pouches on a baking tray and slide onto middle rack of preheated oven for 25 minutes or until rice and proteins are fully cooked. (NOTE: When cooked, rice will be soft and proteins will be firm and opaque.) To test for doneness, carefully open 1 pouch and taste a few grains of rice from the center of the pouch. If necessary, close pouch and return to oven for 5 more minutes.

Carefully open pouch and pour mixture into a large serving bowl; serve immediately.

SO I started dicing and chopping and adding everything to the bowl. Dump in the rice, put everything in the foil packets, put it in the oven. BAM. done.

25 minutes later, pull it out of the oven, open the packets.

RICE IS NOT COOKED.

Chris says, “was it supposed to be instant rice?”

1 cup all-natural instant brown rice

Oh… yep. $#%^$#%^%^&^%!@# —- Chris suggests dumping everything into some boiling water so that the rice can cook. Good plan, but I’m pretty sure the shrimp is going to be super duper well done.

I put about 2 cups of water in a pot, let it boil, then dumped the foil packets into the water. I didn’t time it, but they probably simmered for about 30 minutes before the rice was done.

It was salvaged, and was actually pretty tasty. Chris said he would eat it this way again. I would to, except next time I won’t put so much creole seasoning. Whew, way to spicy for this pregnant lady. I was already having some weird heart burn/acid reflux thing before we sat down to dinner.

Yep, it’s that time again; Monday, time to go back to work, and do work things.

Sunday morning I woke up at 7 absolutely starving. I got up, made coffee, then laid in bed, watching TV for a little while longer. I was hoping the TV would wake Chris up.. That’s mean, isn’t it? He is the weekend breakfast maker, and like I said, I was hungry! I was out of bagels, and he told me Saturday night he would make some pancakes! He finally rolled out of bed at 8 and made us some breakfast – by then even baby P was starving!

I spent the rest of the morning making my grocery list, coloring my hair & getting ready to go to town to pick out paint colors & go grocery shopping.

Moving on to the real point of this post; Instead of browsing pinterest for hours on end, I went right to the Clean Eating Magazine website and found a few new recipes that would be budget & time friendly. The last three recipes came from Clean Eating Magazine.

We stopped at the produce stand and I got 2 tomatoes, 2 zucchini & 1 red onion for $4.

I spent about $71 on groceries this week. Not to shabby.

The price of chicken has gone up in our area (or maybe Florida in general); along with gas prices.. but that’s another complaint. The last two weeks it’s been $4.59/lb, which is up by about $1.10/lb. It’s been a month or so since I’ve bought chicken, but I was talking to some friends today and they commented about the price of chicken going up.

So I’m curious, how much is boneless/skinless chicken breast in your area. Has the price gone up? Is there something happening that I don’t know about?Should I become a vegetarian? JUST KIDDING. I love steak and shrimp to much..and sushi, and… well, meat.

This week has been a doozy; the days always seem to drag on when I have something I’m looking forward to at the end of the week! I’m really looking forward to hanging out with my best girls and going to the Little Ears Expo in Orlando.

I’ve done fairly well at following my meal plan for this week – aside from the grilled cheese & tomato soup, I’ve made meals that I planned on making.

One meal I was looking forward to was the chicken fajita salad; unfortunately it has been storming every afternoon & evening so grilling chicken hasn’t been an option. I’m sure I could bake it, or possibly cook it in a pan, but it just doesn’t seem like it would be the same, does it?

I decided to improvise and use up some chicken sausage that we had hanging out in the fridge. I wasn’t sure how the sausage would mesh with the rest of the ingredients, because it was cajun Andouille sausage – and I wasn’t sure the taste would match the taste I was going for.

I started out by dicing up the green pepper and then cooking it in the coconut oil. While the peppers were cooking I chopped up the sausage and added it to the the green peppers & coconut oil. The rice required 2 cups of water; I added the water & rice to the frying pan w/ the green peppers & sausage.

I let this simmer until almost all the water was absorbed then I added the black beans and mexcorn. Simmered for several more minutes until all the water was absorbed.

Scooped some romaine lettuce into the bottom of our bowls, and piled the rice/sausage mixture on top, then we grated some cheese for some extra deliciousness.

Chris said it was really good, he was impressed. The only bad thing was that the rice wasn’t all the way cooked – bummer. Like I said in the recipe, next time I’ll use brown rice. This was a Spanish rice mix and it wasn’t all that great.

In other, non-food related news, I ran on the treadmill tonight. Last night I walked the first mile, and then ran (very slowly) the 2nd mile. Tonight I made it a goal to run as much of the 2 miles as I could. I did a 5 minute walking warm up, then ran the rest of the first mile. I took a breather for about .25 mile, then ran the rest of the 2nd mile. I finished my 2 miles in 26:XX ( I forget what the exact seconds were).

Not really all that impressive, but it feels good to be moving a little bit. I plan on taking today off, and then Saturday I’m sure I’ll get in a lot of walking at the expo. Hopefully I can get in 2 miles on Sunday. I’m not going to rush into moving up in mileage, and I doubt I’ll move much further than 3 miles. I’m only going to get larger as time goes on, and with that my center of gravity will be all jacked up. I’ll be happy if I can just continue to exercise on a semi-regular basis.

The word dump just makes me giggle. I know, so immature. I can’t help it.

Lucky for you, I’m just talking about a phone dump for today’s post. If you follow me on instagram, you’ve probably seen some of these pictures. I’ll try to post mainly pictures that I haven’t posted on IG already.

Isn’t our kid lucky?

Chris’ funny attempt at reminding me to turn off my flat iron. For some reason it doesn’t have an automatic shut off, so if I forget to turn it off, it stays on all day. Chris wrote this note and stuck it on the mirror in the guest bathroom where I straighten my hair. It still makes me laugh re-reading it. and LOL at “electrical hygiene items” this guy kills me.

“The Boat” it’s just about ready for paint. Chris has been working non-stop on this project. Once it’s painted he’ll flip it over on the trailer and start working on the inside (I think). FYI: The Boat is 17ft long.. it’s a big project.

ugh. Clothes that are looking …ridiculous. Another scrub top bites the dust. … and I’m not even sure what to say about that ridiculous gym outfit. Obviously I need to figure something else out; I have capris but it’s to darn hot for capris…

I went for a long walk on Saturday; Chris got worried and came looking for me. awwww, sweet. (My car is for sale…)

My 2nd favorite lazy night dinner

Man she really needs a haircut!

My niece & nephew making cupcakes from scratch. I hear they turned out pretty tasty!

My Boo with the finished product! She even made the icing from scratch.

Happy Thursday! Are you looking forward to anything special this weekend?

Last Sunday I browsed around Pinterest looking for some new dinner ideas – I can cook pretty well, (and by that I mean, I can follow a recipe and not burn things) but I lack in variety. I’m not good at just throwing random things together and VOILA! a meal (and neither are a bunch of the food blogs I read, yet some how they consider themselves food blogs..moving on).

While the pasta cooks, heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and garlic and cook until soft and fragrant, about 6 minutes. Add the tomatoes, roasted red peppers, half of the basil, smoked paprika, crushed red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Let the mixture cook for another 5-6 minutes until the tomatoes begin to soften.

Add the arugula to the pan and drizzle the remaining 1 teaspoon olive oil over the arugula. Stir it to combine and cook until the arugula wilts. Turn the heat to low and stir in the mozzarella cheese. Add the cooked pasta and the pasta water and stir until combined. Top with Parmesan cheese.

The only thing I would do differently is add the mozzarella on top after it’s been served. When I put the mozzarella in, it melted and all of the arugula stuck together.

Chris and I both enjoyed this meal (despite my dislike for tomatoes). I would make it again.

On Wednesday I got out my crockpot, dumped in a few ingredients, set it to low for 8 hours then rushed out the door to work. This recipe was by far one of the quickest meals I’ve made in a long time.

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a crock pot. Cook on low all day. Serve over rice, noodles, mashed potatoes or with your favorite side dishes.

This dish looks & smells disgusting when you take the lid off the crockpot, but I PROMISE, it tastes really good. I was a little worried that my pregnant nose would not be able to handle the smell, but I did alright with it.

I cooked some brown rice & steamed some carrots to go alongside the cube steak.

It resembles dog food, but it’s pretty tasty! We both really enjoyed it and would definitely make it again.

Now it’s time to start working on my meal planning for the upcoming week…

Disclaimer: I feel like it’s fairly obvious, but I should mention that I did not come up with either one of these recipes, I found them both on Pinterest. There are links to the original recipes within this post.

Y’all, I never in a zillion years thought I would be so lazy during my pregnancy. I never really imagined myself pregnant, but if I were to be pregnant, I never thought I would eat ALL THE THINGS and do NO exercise. What has happened.. Pregnancy. That’s what happened. (It’s not all rainbows & butterflies, and whoever tells you it.. IS LYING).

I know I said previously that every post wouldn’t be about pregnancy, and it won’t.. maybe every other? But also, don’t get mad if I happen to mention being pregnant in every post. I can’t help it. It’s a big freakin’ deal, and it’s pretty much all consuming. {almost} Everything in my life revolves around being pregnant.

Oh, you want to eat sushi, Jena? to bad. You’re pregnant.You had a ridiculous week, and would like some wine? Nope, you’re pregnant.Those jeans are cute aren’t they? HAHAHAHAHA … You’re pregnant.

See, clothes, food, and drinking. What else is there in life? They are all dictated by the fact that I am …….pregnant. So I apologize if I get annoying; I doubt it will get much better.. and it will probably get even worse come December/January or whenever this kid decides to arrive..

WOW.. moving on from that tangent.

At my very first appointment my OB told me that I could continue to do whatever work out regimen I was currently doing. SWEET! ….. except I didn’t. I was exhausted and felt like crap for the first few weeks and by then laziness had taken over in grand fashion.

Every week I say, “OKAY, THIS is the week I will get back to the gym.”

But let me be real honest: I’m embarrassed. I’ve been out of the gym since…. well, a long damn time. Like 10 weeks at this point…fa’real.

I swear when I scan my card the next time I go in there a big alarm will go off that says, “This lazy ass hasn’t been here since May.” In which case I will curl up and die, RIGHT THERE.

That is the real reason why I haven’t been back to the gym yet. Pure embarrassment. Plus, I just look fat. I don’t even look pregnant. Maybe once I look pregnant I can show my face again. That is dumb, right?

It is, but it’s true.

Saturday morning, after breakfast, and after dilly dallying around for far to long, I put on some non-pajamas and went for a walk. I set a goal of walking down every street behind my house, which Is just over three miles.

I put on my HRM & my polar watch, grabbed a water bottle & my phone and set out on my walk. I tried to keep up a quick pace but without having my garmin on, I had no idea what pace I was walking. My HR stayed around 126, which seemed okay.

The most important thing, for me, is that I went out and got a little bit of exercise. It feels so silly to even feel that way – I was active before, and I just…quit.

Mayo Clinic says you should stay, or become active for these reasons,

“During pregnancy, exercise can:

Ease or prevent back pain and other discomforts

Boost your mood and energy levels

Help you sleep better

Prevent excess weight gain

Increase stamina and muscle strength

Exercise during pregnancy might also reduce the risk of gestational diabetes and pregnancy-related high blood pressure, as well as lessen the symptoms of postpartum depression. In addition, it might reduce the risk that your baby is born significantly larger than average (fetal macrosomia).”

Mayo clinic has some guidelines for exercise based on your previous fitness level; I could probably do more than just walk, but at this point, that’s all I want to do. Something is better than nothing, I think.

“For most pregnant women, at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise is recommended on most, if not all, days of the week.

Walking is a great exercise for beginners. It provides moderate aerobic conditioning with minimal stress on your joints. Other good choices include swimming, low-impact aerobics and cycling on a stationary bike. Strength training is OK, too, as long as you avoid lifting very heavy weights.

Remember to warm up and cool down. Drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated, and be careful to avoid overheating. In general, you should be able to carry on a conversation while you’re exercising. If you can’t speak normally while you’re working out, you’re probably pushing yourself too hard.

Depending on your fitness level, consider these guidelines:

You haven’t exercised for a while. Begin with as little as five minutes of physical activity a day. Build up to 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and so on, until you reach at least 30 minutes a day.

You exercised before pregnancy. You can probably continue to work out at the same level while you’re pregnant — as long as you’re feeling comfortable and your health care provider says it’s OK.”

Meal planning is more cost effective, but I’m finding it very challenging. Maybe it’s because some foods just don’t sound very good, or I’m just out of cooking practice, but I sat around for way to long on Sunday morning trying to figure out what I was going to make for the rest of the week.

I only came up with 4 meals, so this means I’ll end up having to go back to the grocery store sometime this week, which is what I’m trying to avoid. Multiple trips to the store = spending more money.. and with a baby on the way, I’m trying to be more cautious of what we spend.

We recently upgraded our cable to the larger channel package and while I can usually find something to watch, it’s annoying to pay so much money for something and still struggle to find something to watch.

According to my baby bump app, I’m 14wk / + some days pregnant, which according to who you ask, is the first week of the second trimester. I’ve always thought the 2nd tri started at the 12 week mark, apparently I was wrong. Let’s count that as one of the things I learned during my first trimester.

I don’t know the exact date, but I think I started having some nausea during the 6th week; It started after breakfast and lasted the majority of the day. I quickly learned that if I snacked through out the day, the nausea wasn’t AS bad. My snacks were not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but they got me through the day.

I survived nausea on: (every pregnancy is different, but this is what helped me)

I also ate a metric shit ton of popsicles. I read somewhere that popsicles help with nausea; well, I took that little tidbit of knowledge and ran with it.

I read on a pregnancy forum that preggie pops are also good for nausea, so I ordered them off of Amazon. I also ordered some Ginger tummy drops that amazon recommended when I was ordering the preggie pops. I can’t say with 100% certainty that they worked, but I did eat the preggie pops quite a few times when I was feeling particularly nauseous.

A few articles on the types of foods that are recommended to help curb morning sickness / nausea:

The all day nausea went away around week 10. I do still get some nausea around bed time, but I usually just lay really still and breath through it.

Weight Gain:

As vain as it might be, weight gain was one of my biggest concerns prior to getting pregnant. Gaining weight has been something I’ve been worried about for much of my life. I wrote here that I had been struggling with body image issues for many years – This was also a concern as Chris & I talked about starting a family.

I read on Baby Center what is recommended for weight gain; you can read the article here.

If your pre-pregnancy weight was in the healthy range for your height (a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9), you should gain between 25 and 35 pounds, gaining 1 to 5 pounds in the first trimester and about 1 pound per week for the rest of your pregnancy for the optimal growth of your baby.

If you were underweight for your height at conception (a BMI below 18.5), you should gain 28 to 40 pounds.

If you were overweight for your height (a BMI of 25 to 29.9), you should gain 15 to 25 pounds. If you were obese (a BMI of 30 or higher), you should gain between 11 and 20 pounds.

If you’re having twins, you should gain 37 to 54 pounds if you started at a healthy weight, 31 to 50 pounds if you were overweight, and 25 to 42 pounds if you were obese.

I never asked my OB about weight gain, and he hasn’t mentioned it. When I found out I was pregnant I was weighing in at 130lbs. Today I was at 135lbs.

and now, something no one wants to talk (or read) about: Constipation

Prior to getting pregnant I ate fairly healthy, and was pretty regular. Whether that was due to my diet, or if I’m just blessed, I don’t know. I’m going to go with diet because I would notice a difference on days when I wasn’t eating as well as I could be.

During the first trimester all my healthy eating habits went right out the window – I ate whatever sounded good at the time and that didn’t make me want to vomit. (I never did vomit, but some smells, and foods made me want to).

I’ve read in a few places that constipation is kind of par for the course in pregnancy;

One culprit is an increase in the hormone progesterone, which relaxes smooth muscles throughout the body, including the digestive tract. This means that food passes through the intestines more slowly. And the problem may be compounded later in pregnancy by the pressure of your growing uterus on your rectum. Iron supplements, particularly in high doses, can make constipation worse.

I wouldn’t say that I’m constipated, but I’m definitely not going as regularly as I was OR as regularly as I’d like. I think it’s a combination of pregnancy & not eating as well as I was. I basically avoided any kind of real cooking for the majority of the first tri and barely ate any veggies. Over the last 2-3 weeks I’ve started cooking again and I’m trying to incorporate some more veggies into my diet. Hopefully this helps!

I think those are the main things that have affected me over the last 14 weeks.

I’m not a pregnancy pro, and I don’t claim to be. I want to try and keep it as real as possible through out my pregnancy. It’s not all butterflies and rainbows; it’s hard… even at 14 weeks.

I am blessed to have 3 other ladies to be going through this with; 2 are ahead of me, and 1 is behind me. It’s nice to be able to talk to everyone and know that I’m not crazy, and that I’m not the only one feeling these crazy feelings.

Maybe you are going through some of the same things but don’t have anyone that can relate to what you are going through – I hope you can find a little comfort here knowing that you aren’t crazy. You’re pants really won’t button at 7 weeks, and that’s okay. You aren’t alone in that, I promise you that.

I know many of the people that read this blog aren’t pregnant, so I apologize that this enitre post is pregnancy related; BUT, this is what’s going on in my life right now, and I’ve always posted about what’s going on in my life. I promise that every post won’t be pregnancy related. No one wants that to happen.